Vandalism
by MineIsAnEvilLaugh
Summary: Castle and Beckett interview an interesting suspect. Future fic, long after the show's ended.


**Just an idea that wouldn't out of my head. Not sure I like how it turned out. Reviews are welcome and encouraged!**

**_I OWN NOTHING. I pray to the writing gods every day to even have hope of being as good as AWM and his team._**

Castle pushed through the door to the observation room with his shoulder, trying not to spill the two cups of coffee he was holding. Ever since Gates found out about his relationship with Beckett, he was only allowed to work certain cases now and then, when Beckett and the boys needed an outside point of view.

He handed a coffee to Beckett, who was watching the kid in the interrogation room through the glass. He looked to be about eighteen, he was tall and had brown hair and blue eyes. She smiled at him when she took the coffee, and then went back to watching the kid, and Castle watched her watch him. She was older now, with little wrinkles around her mouth and laugh lines at the edges of her eyes. She still kept her hair long and still worked out every day, and she was more beautiful than ever.

"So do you want to – what?" she had caught him staring at her.

"Nothing," he shrugged. "I just have a really hot wife."

Beckett rolled her eyes and smiled. "_Anyway_, do you want to do good-cop bad-cop or the double-bad-cop thing?"

"Why Detective Beckett, did you just call me a cop?" Beckett gave him a look and raised her eyebrows. Castle smiled at his wife's annoyed expression then tapped his fingers against his mouth and thought for a moment. "What about the stern parents thing we did that one time? It seemed to work nicely with that nineteen year old."

Beckett grinned and agreed. Just as they were getting ready to go into the room, Ryan and Esposito came in to the OB room. Ryan had a bag of popcorn and Esposito had a couple of bags of candy. They stopped short when they saw Castle and Beckett, thinking they'd already started the interrogation. Beckett lifted an eyebrow and the boys just shrugged. "It's always a good time when you yell at teenagers. They get really scared." Espo grinned. "We wouldn't miss this."

Castle laughed and fed the birds while Beckett smiled and out her hand on the doorknob "Sure you don't wanna come Ryan? This was your catch."

"No, no. It'll be much more fun watching you two do it." Ryan and Espo smirked and took their seats at the window.

Beckett opened the door. "Come on Castle, let's get some answers out of this kid."

"Yes, dear."

* * *

"Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. I'm sorry it had to come to this, but now are we finally going to get some answers out of you?" Beckett chided as she walked into the room, Castle at her heels, looking stern, which Beckett always thought was a weird look on him. He sat down and folded his hands in his usual interrogation position while she threw the kid's file onto the table and walked around it, leaning on the chair next to Jimmy.

The kid grabbed the folder and flipped through it, his eyes widening. "You have an entire file on me?" Beckett nodded. "This is ridiculous."

"No, not ridiculous. Unnecessary, maybe, but that was your call. When you wouldn't answer our questions, we had no choice but to bring you in." Castle kept his face stony and his tone perfectly even. Beckett was impressed.

She walked around the table and sat down next to her husband, trying not to smile. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Jimmy just stared. "Really? You're going to make me say it?"

Castle and Beckett looked at each other then, smiling, both replied "Yes."

The kid rolled his eyes and looked more than a little bit annoyed, but he confessed. Well, sort of. "Fine. Fine!" he began. "I snuck out last night, happy? I told you I was going to bed, then snuck out my window and down the fire escape."

"Yes, well that's not the whole story is it?" Jimmy's father was grinning widely by now. "What did you do after you snuck out of the loft, huh?"

Beckett was trying to keep it together. There was a laugh growing in the pit of her stomach and forcing itself up her throat, but she forced it down, trying to keep a straight face.

Jimmy hesitated at his father's question. "I took mom's Harley and just went around the city for a while." He wouldn't look either of his parents in the eye.

"Oh really?" Beckett began. "What about the report of vandalism that brought you in here in the first place?"

"It wasn't vandalism! Uncle Kev's just overreacting a bit." Behind the mirror, Ryan and Espo were laughing so hard they had spilled their popcorn. The poor kid was trying so hard to hide what he did. It was too funny.

"Oh no," Castle said, looking his son in the eye, "overreacting would be sicking Gates on you. She's not big on vandals."

"I'm not a vandal!"

"You lit Kevin's lawn on fire!"

"Not the whole lawn!"

Beckett was having more trouble keeping in her laughter, but she had a mission, and she was determined to complete it. "Now, my question is why would you take my bike and ride all the way out to the Long Island suburbs just to light some grass on fire?"

Jimmy stared at his mother. "Unbelievable," He said. "That's what this is about? Really? You and Uncle Kev had Uncle Javi pick me up in a squad car and drive me all the way down here just so I would admit it to your face?"

Castle and Beckett looked at their son, trying to look surprised, the looked at each other, then back at Jimmy, and said in unison "Admit what?"

"I WANT TO GO TO PROM WITH HALEY OKAY?! That's what I burned into their lawn. Just the word "prom" and a question mark. Can I go home now please?"

Haley was the youngest of the four Ryan children, and she and Jimmy had been close since the moment they met when they were infants. Castle and Beckett and Kevin and Jenny always joked about Jimmy and Haley getting together, but they never thought it would actually happen, even though they all secretly wanted it more than anything.

Castle looked at Beckett, whose eyes had welled up a bit, and smiled at her. Then he turned back to his son and began to say what he had been thinking for years. "Jimmy and Haley sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

"DAD SHUT UP."

"First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes – "

"DAD!"

Ryan and Esposito were doubled over with laughter in the OB room. Ryan had known Haley liked Jimmy, and he was just going to have so much fun scaring the kid. He'd have to ask Castle if he could borrow his severed head.

* * *

Ten minutes later, they were all standing by Beckett's desk in the bullpit, Jimmy skulking, and all the adults still snickering. Beckett knew Jimmy was disappointed that Haley didn't get to see his invitation before Ryan put it out with a garden hose, so she grabbed his wrist and led him into a conference room, leaving Castle and the boys to plot their attack on Jimmy on prom night.

"Mom, I don't really want to talk about - " he stopped because she had the look on her face that said "time for you to listen to mom". Also because she was holding out twenty bucks for him.

"Here," she said. "Go buy a pizza with extra cheese and write 'I know this is cheesy, but will you go to prom with me?' on the inside of the top. She'll love it."

Jimmy took the money but was skeptical. "You sure? She won't think it's…"

"Cheesy? That's kid of the point, Jimmy." Beckett smiled. "It's how your father asked me to move in with him when we were dating." That made Jimmy smile, which made Beckett smile even more. "Emily's waiting for you outside, she'll take you back to Long Island. Make sure my bike gets back in one piece, got it?"

"I have to ride on the back of the _VESPA_?" Jimmy hated his sixteen-year-old sister's mode of transportation.

"Yes. To and from school for two weeks. That's your punishment for sneaking out and stealing my Harley."

Jimmy sighed and muttered "thanks," then began to walk out the door, but he turned back to his mother. "Really," he held up the twenty-dollar bill. "Thanks, mom." He kissed her on the cheek then walked out of the room. Beckett watched her son say goodbye to his father and uncles, and then head to the elevator. As the doors closed, she saw him grin stupidly just like his father did. Her eyes welled up again and Castle came in the room and wrapped his arms around her waist. "We raised a pretty good kid," he whispered.

"Yeah. Yeah we did." She smiled and gave her husband a quick peck on the mouth and put her head on his shoulder.

They stayed like that until they heard a not-so-subtle "a-hem" and they looked up to see Gates standing in the doorway. "Alright, Detective, you've had your fun. Back to work."

"Yes, sir."


End file.
